By Sherman C. Seequeh
Despite emotions, ecstasies and exuberances demonstrated at the one-million people’s petitioning ceremony of their leader last Saturday, President George Manneh Weah, coolheaded folks noticed that the occasion was sacrosanct and solemn. When two “lovers” meet and make vows of affection, love and unwavering commitment to one another, grounds and ceremonies are deemed holy and sacred.
No doubt, February 4, 2023, was momentous as it was solemn. As I indicated elsewhere, it is a day that will go down the memory lane for a long time to come. The wide world watched with utter amazement the demonstration of an unusual display of affinity and love—a kind of political covenant—between a sitting Liberian President and the citizens. Monrovia and other provincial capital cities were submerged in human floods, as seas of citizens waved and brandished red, white and blue insignias and paraphernalia.
On that same day, as Monrovia stood stay, gasping for its breath watching avalanches of humans in communities and streets of Monrovia and its environs, so were several countryside cities, by region, drowned in human tsunami. While Grand Cape Mount stood alone, and Robertsport was jostling with a mammoth of citizens, thousands of residents of other Western provinces such as Gbarpolu and Bomi Counties emptied themselves into Tubmanburg.
Meanwhile, throngs of Southeasterners also stormed Zwedru, Grand Gedeh, while northerners inundated the country’s second largest populated county, Nimba, specifically its capital Sanniquellie. Bong’s Gbarnga City was similarly submerged by crowds of people.
From the North to the South, and from the East to the West, Liberians on Saturday, February 4, rose up turbulently and intentionally to send a single message and pledge to all and sundry: “George Manneh Weah is our common choice on the 2023 electoral ballot. We are bend together on the resolve to give him a second mandate—and a first ballot victory. And we plead with him to accept our petition.”
By conservative count, pundits who closely followed the nationwide Weah 2023 People’s Petition Ceremonies across the country put the total turn out to nearly two million. And the petitioners where eloquently clear in the message to the world and the President.
Paraphrased, this is what the citizens, said quite loudly in once voice Saturday:
“President Weah is our choice for President on October 10 this year. We are resolved to make him stay as President. He’s one of us. We see him in us and he sees us in him. That is why from 2018 to this year, he and his Government have made us, the ordinary people, the priority targets all development programs. This is why, in fact, his national development plan is called Pro-Poor Agenda.
That is why President Weah’s provision of electricity, roads, education, health, and other social services are directed first and foremost to people and communities that were long forgotten. That is why essential commodities such as rice, cement, transportation cost remain available and within the purchasing power of us, the ordinary people. That’s why he appoints bitterbud sellers’ children as Ministers in Government.”
Furthermore, the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered powerfully across the country gave a message to President Weah. Paraphrased, this is what the people told the President on Saturday:
“President Weah: We have gathered to ask you to consider contesting the presidency for a second term. Don’t leave us in the hands of strangers. Please, don’t leave us until the good work that you have done—the roads you just started, the WASSCE Fees you are paying, the Free Education your government is providing, the big light that is spreading across the motherland, the inflation that you have substantially crippled from high to low, and all the pro-poor plans, must first take firm root. And we are certain that an additional six-year term will make you do more for Liberia.”
Thankfully, the President responded responsibly:
“I wholeheartedly accept your petition. Because of the special bond of affinity we share, the vision for better and peaceful Liberia, I accept your petition with my two hands. Because you deserve better, because 176 year-old Liberia deserves more paved roads; because our mothers and sisters deserve to move from shanty huts to decent free pro-poor housing units, and to decent market buildings; because a great fight against big shots, elites and other anti-masses elements is still raging, I accept your nomination. We will win because you, the masses of the people, have spoken. You represent the voice of God.”
We thank the People of Liberia and their President for the exchange of such politically holy vows. It is everybody’s prayer that, because Liberia, Africa’s oldest Republic deserves better, the Saturday, February 4 Covenant reached by the people and President Weah will bear fruit, not only on Election Day this year, but that the fruit of it will be manifested in shared prosperity, solid peace and unity in the years that come.
Nonsense propaganda